Abstract

In "The Claim of Reason" Cavell equates the philosophy of mind to the aesthetics. He considers the relationship between mind and body not as an epistemic connection, but as a "natural", "internal" relation. In this way he wants to overcome the dichotomy of mind and body (of inner and outer): the body doesn't "hide" the mind, but reveals and "expresses" it. From this point of view to "acknowledge" the mind in a body means to acknowledge something as a human being: it is a form of "seeing-as". This idea allows to safeguard both the immediate nature of the acknowledgment and its "fallibility (aspect-blindness)", i.e. the fact that the acknowledgment may always fail.